5 ms·

The page about technology says, "Our sensors observe that the cyclist has extended their left arm. Detecting the cyclist's hand signal, our software predicts th

The page about technology says, "Our sensors observe that the cyclist has extended their left arm. Detecting the cyclist's hand signal, our software predicts that the cyclist will move to the left side of the lane." This suggests to me that they're trying to deal with situations like the ones you've brought up.

moxious 10y ago
There is a difference between "trying to deal with" and "product on sale next month". These cars are overhyped. They've been just around the corner for the last 10 years. They are the Duke Nukem Forever of Silicon Valley.
- criley2 10y ago
  >These cars are overhyped Not really, they're correctly hyped. The concept is revolutionary. > They've been just around the corner for the last 10 year B-S. Holy revisionism BS!! We were NOT talking about self-driving cars in 2006! There was no company seriously designing fully autonomous cars in 2006! It was fully in the realm of science fiction, no investment, no major players, nothing. And you make it sound like it was supposed to be released 10 years ago! Vaporware! They told us we'd have AI cars in 2006! It never came! <---- False reality that never occurred. Why do you feel the need to lie about recent history? Shouldn't you observe that if you have to make a nasty lie to support your argument, maybe your argument is wrong? You're definitely parroting the contrarian point here, but you're being very low-effort about it. Contrarian can be cool but please try harder.
  - ZeroFries 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_autonomous_cars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_autonomous_cars
    - ssalazar 10y ago
      A link to a 15 page wikipedia article is not a rebuttal.
      - ZeroFries 10y ago
        Seems to directly contradict what the parent comment is claiming, does it not?
  - marssaxman 10y ago
    We absolutely were talking about self-driving cars in 2006, when no less a "major player" than the US Government had already been investing in this "science fiction" idea for two years, in the form of the DARPA Grand Challenge races. The 2007 race even required compliance with traffic laws in order to win. Google's autonomous vehicle program is a direct result of this project - that's why they hired Sebastian Thrun, whose team won the 2005 race. I don't know how serious it was, but part of the initial PR about the Grand Challenge included the goal that it would enable the US military to convert some significant fraction of their fleet of ground vehicles to autonomous operation within ten years. I do think the previous poster was overstating their case a little, but not so badly as you seem to believe.
    - industriousthou 10y ago
      Wasn't there a breakthrough year with DARPA challenge? It seemed like for a while the results seemed to indicate that autonomous vehicles were basically impossible, then suddenly a few vehicles just killed it one year. I could be wrong, but seems like that threshold may have been less than ten years ago.
  - moocow01 10y ago
    Caltrans and UC Berkeley were very seriously working on technology to have cars fully autonomously run on freeways. In fact my father was involved in the project some odd 20 years ago. The difference is that today you have more advanced technology, more private interests, less government interests and more media involved.
  - tomaskafka 10y ago
    10 years ago, my peers at uni were building self navigating robots that could autonomously follow a path in a park without gps ...
  - tomaskafka 10y ago
    10 years ago, my peers at uni were building self navigating robots that could autonomously follow a path in a park without gps ...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    Hey I just wanted to remind you about the Principle of Charity[0] as well as HN's guidelines for commenting[1]. It's easy to forget when you feel strongly about something but that's a real person you're replying to and they are probably acting in good faith. We should be civil on HN even when we have strong opinions. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - moxious 10y ago
    Here's an article that talks about Volkswagen's self driving car project dating back to 2006: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370598,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370598,00.asp > In 2006, Volkswagen showed off a self-driving version of its Gold car, named "53 plus 1" in honor of the original #53, Herbie. Autoblog.com posted a video of the car in action. Should I go further back in history? Because we can. Yes, the concept is revolutionary. But so is matter teleportation, and that's not going on sale next month either. What do we call technologies that have been hyped for 10+ years? This is not just a knee-jerk contrarian point of view. Vaporware is actually the correct term we use for these products, not a slur. It's not bullshit revisionism. People really have been talking about these things forever but not delivering them. > Why do you feel the need to lie about recent history? Shouldn't you observe that if you have to make a nasty lie to support your argument, maybe your argument is wrong? Settle down, nobody's doing any nasty lying, see the link above, this discussion has been going on longer than 10 years.
- alooPotato 10y ago
  If you use autonomous miles driven as a metric, there is actual progress happening. That metric is increasing exponentially btw. This tells you nothing about time to market, but it does tell you that the time to market is a definite (but maybe unknowable number). In contrast, fission reactors have been around the corner for a long time, however, there if you use the metric of net power generated from fission as a metric, no real progress is being made there. I see a real difference between these two "always around the corner" technologies.
  - j_jochem 10y ago
    I think you meant to say fusion. Fission reactors have been in productive use for decades.
    - alooPotato 10y ago
      yes you're correct, my mistake
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - tedsanders 10y ago
    For many years, fusion reactors also experienced exponential growth in a key progress/performance indicator: https://www.google.com/search?q=fusion+progress&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju4t-fr_LQAhUN6WMKHdeeCAYQ_AUICSgC&biw=614&bih=308#imgrc=tNeqSdatKNPh4M%3A https://www.google.com/search?q=fusion+progress&source=lnms&... I would encourage humility when considering whether to make a claim about a field that you are not well informed of. Real progress is being made, by a number of different groups, in a number of different directions.
- tigershark 10y ago
  Absolutely false. A bit more than 5 years ago I thought quite seriously to invest on self driving cars because I thought it would be viable in the not so far future and it seemed that no one else was pushing for it. 10 years ago there were only research projects with abysmal performance compared to what today seems not too far from the market. Any verifiable source for your claims?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mnglkhn2 10y ago
So far the focus was primarily on what it would take to produce an autonomous car, which is primarily a technological challenge. But what I see as a harder problem to solve is the one imposed on all humans participating in traffic: we will have to strictly adhere and be very self-disciplined in traffic, in order to make sure that the non-humans get the correct message. Imagine I am a cyclist and I don't signal but I swiftly swerve to the right. Unless the self-driving car is already at a slow speed, it would impose an undue risk. Or, it is hard to expect that humans will rigorously adhere to this traffic discipline. This is why these cars will drive slow for the foreseeable future and will frustrate a good chunk of the drivers. Unless it gets dedicated lanes, the way bicycles do.
- freeone3000 10y ago
  This would also impose an undue risk for human drivers.

moxious 10y ago

There is a difference between "trying to deal with" and "product on sale next month". These cars are overhyped. They've been just around the corner for the last 10 years. They are the Duke Nukem Forever of Silicon Valley.

criley2 10y ago
>These cars are overhyped Not really, they're correctly hyped. The concept is revolutionary. > They've been just around the corner for the last 10 year B-S. Holy revisionism BS!! We were NOT talking about self-driving cars in 2006! There was no company seriously designing fully autonomous cars in 2006! It was fully in the realm of science fiction, no investment, no major players, nothing. And you make it sound like it was supposed to be released 10 years ago! Vaporware! They told us we'd have AI cars in 2006! It never came! <---- False reality that never occurred. Why do you feel the need to lie about recent history? Shouldn't you observe that if you have to make a nasty lie to support your argument, maybe your argument is wrong? You're definitely parroting the contrarian point here, but you're being very low-effort about it. Contrarian can be cool but please try harder.
- ZeroFries 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_autonomous_cars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_autonomous_cars
  - ssalazar 10y ago
    A link to a 15 page wikipedia article is not a rebuttal.
    - ZeroFries 10y ago
      Seems to directly contradict what the parent comment is claiming, does it not?
- marssaxman 10y ago
  We absolutely were talking about self-driving cars in 2006, when no less a "major player" than the US Government had already been investing in this "science fiction" idea for two years, in the form of the DARPA Grand Challenge races. The 2007 race even required compliance with traffic laws in order to win. Google's autonomous vehicle program is a direct result of this project - that's why they hired Sebastian Thrun, whose team won the 2005 race. I don't know how serious it was, but part of the initial PR about the Grand Challenge included the goal that it would enable the US military to convert some significant fraction of their fleet of ground vehicles to autonomous operation within ten years. I do think the previous poster was overstating their case a little, but not so badly as you seem to believe.
  - industriousthou 10y ago
    Wasn't there a breakthrough year with DARPA challenge? It seemed like for a while the results seemed to indicate that autonomous vehicles were basically impossible, then suddenly a few vehicles just killed it one year. I could be wrong, but seems like that threshold may have been less than ten years ago.
- moocow01 10y ago
  Caltrans and UC Berkeley were very seriously working on technology to have cars fully autonomously run on freeways. In fact my father was involved in the project some odd 20 years ago. The difference is that today you have more advanced technology, more private interests, less government interests and more media involved.
- tomaskafka 10y ago
  10 years ago, my peers at uni were building self navigating robots that could autonomously follow a path in a park without gps ...
- tomaskafka 10y ago
  10 years ago, my peers at uni were building self navigating robots that could autonomously follow a path in a park without gps ...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  Hey I just wanted to remind you about the Principle of Charity[0] as well as HN's guidelines for commenting[1]. It's easy to forget when you feel strongly about something but that's a real person you're replying to and they are probably acting in good faith. We should be civil on HN even when we have strong opinions. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- moxious 10y ago
  Here's an article that talks about Volkswagen's self driving car project dating back to 2006: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370598,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2370598,00.asp > In 2006, Volkswagen showed off a self-driving version of its Gold car, named "53 plus 1" in honor of the original #53, Herbie. Autoblog.com posted a video of the car in action. Should I go further back in history? Because we can. Yes, the concept is revolutionary. But so is matter teleportation, and that's not going on sale next month either. What do we call technologies that have been hyped for 10+ years? This is not just a knee-jerk contrarian point of view. Vaporware is actually the correct term we use for these products, not a slur. It's not bullshit revisionism. People really have been talking about these things forever but not delivering them. > Why do you feel the need to lie about recent history? Shouldn't you observe that if you have to make a nasty lie to support your argument, maybe your argument is wrong? Settle down, nobody's doing any nasty lying, see the link above, this discussion has been going on longer than 10 years.
alooPotato 10y ago
If you use autonomous miles driven as a metric, there is actual progress happening. That metric is increasing exponentially btw. This tells you nothing about time to market, but it does tell you that the time to market is a definite (but maybe unknowable number). In contrast, fission reactors have been around the corner for a long time, however, there if you use the metric of net power generated from fission as a metric, no real progress is being made there. I see a real difference between these two "always around the corner" technologies.
- j_jochem 10y ago
  I think you meant to say fusion. Fission reactors have been in productive use for decades.
  - alooPotato 10y ago
    yes you're correct, my mistake
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- tedsanders 10y ago
  For many years, fusion reactors also experienced exponential growth in a key progress/performance indicator: https://www.google.com/search?q=fusion+progress&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwju4t-fr_LQAhUN6WMKHdeeCAYQ_AUICSgC&biw=614&bih=308#imgrc=tNeqSdatKNPh4M%3A https://www.google.com/search?q=fusion+progress&source=lnms&... I would encourage humility when considering whether to make a claim about a field that you are not well informed of. Real progress is being made, by a number of different groups, in a number of different directions.
tigershark 10y ago
Absolutely false. A bit more than 5 years ago I thought quite seriously to invest on self driving cars because I thought it would be viable in the not so far future and it seemed that no one else was pushing for it. 10 years ago there were only research projects with abysmal performance compared to what today seems not too far from the market. Any verifiable source for your claims?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mnglkhn2 10y ago

So far the focus was primarily on what it would take to produce an autonomous car, which is primarily a technological challenge. But what I see as a harder problem to solve is the one imposed on all humans participating in traffic: we will have to strictly adhere and be very self-disciplined in traffic, in order to make sure that the non-humans get the correct message. Imagine I am a cyclist and I don't signal but I swiftly swerve to the right. Unless the self-driving car is already at a slow speed, it would impose an undue risk. Or, it is hard to expect that humans will rigorously adhere to this traffic discipline. This is why these cars will drive slow for the foreseeable future and will frustrate a good chunk of the drivers. Unless it gets dedicated lanes, the way bicycles do.

freeone3000 10y ago
This would also impose an undue risk for human drivers.